Training Under the Perfect Coach
Few things challenge the will and grit of a person better than an intense physical challenge. I personally have experienced this in the form of black belt training in Taekwondo. I have learned through martial arts what our bodies are capable of. I know many athletes experience this: the amazing thrill of overcoming a particularly challenging technique or sparring match. It makes it every bit worth the toil and pain that went into accomplishing it.
I had an especially clear moment of this a couple of weeks ago when I did a wooden board-breaking test for my training. I was super nervous. I had been assigned some very challenging techniques, and I wasn’t sure if I would be strong enough to break the boards (without getting hurt, that is). The test day arrived. It wasn’t easy: it tested what I was made of down to my core. I received plenty of gnarly bruises and scrapes to prove it (which, at the time of writing this, are still-healing reminders of the moment), yet somehow, I did it.
Despite the pain and exhaustion I felt when the test was done, I was elated! And I realized there was a deeper significance to what I was doing. Hidden among the splinters and sweat of the moment, God had snuck in a profound spiritual message for me:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
… For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:22-23)
That’s weighty. Try to stop and let it sink in. We can feel the “whole creation … groaning together”! The not-yet-right-ness of the world. That there is a perfection the world was designed to have, but doesn’t have now.
We can feel that we were created for something greater and more beautiful than what we can see with our eyes and experience with our bodies. There is this deep, insatiable longing for what I can only think is the “glory that is to be revealed to us”. What is amazing to me is that God gifts us opportunities to experience this suffering-to-glory victory here on earth. Experiences that help make the spiritual things He is doing tangible.
It didn’t feel like victory was happening in the thick of my test. It felt a whole lot like suffering. Loud voices in my head kept telling me it was too hard. Yet after the suffering of the moment had passed, I was able to see it differently, and I felt this assurance that the pain had been worth it.
Now, I know in the grand scheme of eternity, my martial arts accomplishments aren’t significant. God is doing far bigger things spiritually through the everyday suffering I experience. He uses a process of refinement of the highest degree- because what He is preparing me for is of utmost importance.
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)
An athlete with a goal trains with discipline and intentionality. Exercises are tailored to that goal and every day of training counts. I love Paul’s analogy here in Romans: “I do not box as one beating the air.” A very applicable verse for a martial artist, don’t you think? But Paul is pointing to a spiritual truth: If physical goals require discipline, why wouldn’t ones of a spiritual nature?
I’m going to take Paul’s athletic analogies one step further. Think of a sports coach, and what their role is (if you’ve never been into sports, think of a teacher of any field). Jesus is our coach. Like all good coaches or teachers, He has made a goal for us to work towards. It’s lofty, because He sees our potential, and knows He can help us become it if we accept the assignment. And like the best of coaches, His goal is for us to become like Him.
Good teachers go beyond “do what I say, don’t do what I do.” They live what they teach. They show what they want their pupils to do and be.
This is what Jesus has done for us. For me, this radically changes the way I look at following Jesus! As an “athlete” on His team, a “soldier” in His army, I’m not following a list of rules to please a strict ruler. I am following the training regimen of my General, my Coach. No wonder the suffering in life is sometimes so grueling. It is training me and refining me into a spiritual athlete like Jesus! I can’t imagine a more glorious goal. On our own, it would be impossible… but we follow the perfect Coach, and He will work it in us if we give His training everything we’ve got.
“So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
… Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:13,20-21)